Friday, September 30, 2011

Tim & I both love starting each summer day with a Starbucks Caramel Frappacino. Unfortunately the bill for 10 Frappacinos a week is incredibly steep. I decided to start trying to make our own at the house after my sister gifted me with a Magic Bullet for my birthday this year. I'll be the first to admit that it is not exactly the same but at least with these I know exactly what is going into them & that they are a lot healthier than the Starbucks version.

First I add some sugar into the bottom of the cup.

Then I added in some caramel syrup I purchased at Whole Foods, probably about a tablespoon.

You can either add in some espresso or I like to use coffee I freeze into ice cubes and throw those in there. If you are using the espresso you will need to add ice. I just choose to skip that step which also keeps it from getting watered down.

Next, add in about 1/2 a cup of cream or milk. Check out all of these layers of flavors.

Then all you have to do is blend that sucker up until it looks like this.

But wait, there's more....check out this gorgeous contraption from Trader Joe's. It has two types of sugar crystals, chocolate bits & coffee beans & grinds it into your drink, on top of your cupcake, into your mouth....not that I've done that or anything...

Thursday, September 29, 2011

So a LONG time ago you may remember that I won my choice of fabric from Tonic Living from a contest held by Aubrey & Lindsey from Aubrey & Lindsay's Little House Blog. Well I ordered the fabric & then it sat for awhile...as in about 3 months while I tried to figure out what to do & how to do it.

I finally decided I would use it to build a bench for the end of our bed. I wasn't finding anything I was particularly crazy about & there wasn't anything that was exactly the size I needed. I measured everything & went to Lowe's to get some 2x4s cut down to size.

I hammered in 2 3-4" nails attaching two of the short pieces to the long pieces making a long rectangle (yes, I know I'm very descriptive). I also use a square to make sure the corners were square, somehow I actually managed to do that in my first attempt.

Next I added in the 3rd short piece to the middle, just slightly off-center as my original plan was to tuft this beast.

Now was the real test. Since I had been using my dad's equipment to put all of this together I had yet to see if this was even going to fit beyond my one-time measurements which I'm not really know for being accurate about.

Success! It fit perfectly, actually even better than I had originally planned. Then it sat there as a frame for about a year. That's right, I put this together about 9-10 months ago...

Fast forward to 2011...& get your imagination all fired up because I forgot to take pictures for awhile during these next few steps.

I bought six table legs from Lowe's 15 1/4" Country Pine to be exact. I stained them with some leftover Minwax Jacobean and did about 3 coats, letting them dry for 24 hours between each set & not wiping the stain off after applying it. Once they were the color I wanted I used some WaterLox to seal & protect them. Once they were ready I took them & the frame over to my dad to drill through the frame & legs before bolting them on with 4 3" bolts for each leg. We wanted to make sure they weren't going anywhere.

After they were attached the fun began. I purchased jute webbing from a local upholstery store & borrowed a serious air-powered staple gun from a friend of my dad's. I first stapled them lengthwise before going back width-wise as I wove them between those length-wise strips.

Once I completed the entire bench I took a long piece of batting & split it into 2 pieces. It came apart pretty easily, I just had to be careful not to pull too much from one side or the either so it split evenly. I took one of the halves and stapled it around the webbing so the cushion wouldn't slip through the small holes between the jute.

I then cut a 4" piece of dense foam to be roughly an 1" wider than the bench on all sides.

I stapled another piece of batting over the top of it to help smooth it out since as you can see the edges are not exactly clean to say the least. Finally I stapled the fabric all around the bench folding the corners as neatly as possible on the edges. At this point I was slightly burnt out on this project to say the least so I kiboshed the tufting idea and loaded that sucked up in my little car for the drive back home.

Finally got the bench home & in its rightful place which has really helped the entire room to feel just a little bit more homey.